WebINK is happy to announce the winner of their contest to “Scale Mt. Default” is Amber Case, with her very exuberant look at the top of the mountain. It’s as if she had lived though many years of using default fonts on the internet, and was now free to use thousands of fonts wherever she deems fit. Oh wait, there we go.
There is only one day left until WebVisions and Jason Cranford Teague’s afternoon workshop on HTML5 + CSS3, but its not to late to go. There are a few slots left open, and if you register today, he’ll send you a free copy of his book CSS3 Visual Quickstart Guide. That’s right, register now for his workshop at WebVisions, and you’ll get a copy of my book sent to you ASAP.
And if you are already registered, don’t be sad. He’ll be giving away 3 copies of his book at the event as well, so be there!
Register at http://wvnyc.eventbrite.com/
Live type is revolutionizing web design. No longer do designers and developers need to choose from a limited set of six typefaces – with WebINK, overcoming the obstacles of default fonts is a thing of the past.
As a fun way to celebrate the new era of web typography, WebINK will set up the Mt. Default photo backdrop at WebVisions NYC on Jan. 20th – take your picture in mountain climbing gear and post it on Twitter with the text “I scaled Mt. Default!” and include the hashtag #WebINKphoto.
David Stump (@davidstump) had the winning photo in Atlanta. WebVisions NYC attendees who post their awesome and hilarious photos will be entered to win an iPad.
Do you feel a yodel coming on?
Sure, conferences are great fun and offer a chance to hobnob with fellow professionals, but sometimes your boss needs a little more than a simple reassurance that the event will offer real value for the money. Fear not, here are just a few good reasons for your boss to happily sign off on sending you to the show:
From the beginnings of WebVisions, leading companies such as Weiden & Kennedy, Waggoner Edstrom, Yahoo, Netflix, Nike, Intel and Hewlett Packard (to name a few) have retooled and reshaped their web and mobile strategies, establishing new processes and streamlined operations to become online leaders. Won’t you join them?
If you were once a student who lived on Top Ramen and socked away spare change for a night out, you probably remember that going to an event or conference was out of the question. WebVisions is offering a special deal – simply register a group of attendees for WebVisions, and the conference will donate a scholarship in your organization’s name to a student at School of Visual Arts, NYU, Parsons Institute or other school of your choice.
We’re offering one scholarship for every four paid attendees that you register from Dec. 15, 2011 to January 15, 2012. Contact Brad Smith or Jennifer Jones at 503-230-2058 or register online at http://wvnyc-groups.eventbrite.com/
From the original Star Trek series to the film Minority Report, the technologies and interfaces of the “future” have offered audiences a sense of wonderment and provided a lens to examine current devices. Without sci-fi, would we have had the Motorola flip phone, which is suspiciously similar to Star Trek’s communicators? Would the iPad and Kinect’s successful use of gestural design been possible without the breathtaking control interface in Minority Report?
SciFi and other speculative interfaces can unlock possibilities for new interactions in any product or service. In his workshop on “How to Use Scifi to Create Better Interfaces”, interface design expert Nathan Shedroff will share lessons culled from imaginative interfaces unconstrained from traditional constraints, with examples, and prompts attendees to brainstorm around these lessons to unlock new aspects of their existing projects. Then, attendees will develop their own projects using these inspirations.
The workshop is a rare opportunity to explore interface design at a new level with one of the leading visionaries of user experience design and will be followed up by Nathan’s keynote presentation “Make it So: UX Lessons from Science Fiction”, which traces the lines of influence between sci-fi and reality, and investigates how the depiction of technologies evolve over time, how fictional interfaces influence the real world, and what lessons we can learn through this process.
When he’s not writing books and speaking to audiences around the world, Nathan is the chair of the ground-breaking MBA in Design Strategy at California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco.
For months, Google’s Scott Jenson has been telling people to prepare for the upcoming zombie apocalypse of devices. While the CDC issues zombie guidelines telling people to stock up on water, food and medications, this workshop focuses on giving you the tools you really need to survive the inevitable infestation.
In the short time Jason Grigsby and Lyza Danger Gardner have, they won’t be able to make you an expert in each tool. But they will give you everything you need to start building your own preparedness kit and how to choose which tools are right for you.
In their must-attend workshop on the “Zombie Apocalypse of Device Preparedness”, Jason and Lyza will cover Responsive web design, mobile first web design, device detection, jQuery mobile, PhoneGap and the use of good, old fashioned baseball bats to give you a crucial head start in developing mobile apps – and keep your brain safe from flesh eating zombies.
The amount of information every one of us deals with daily is growing out of control as life accelerates, pressure increases, and everything needs to be dealt with right now. Breakthrough progress requires more than careful planning and in depth research – we need to cultivate the happy accidents that can take our games to a new level.
This begs the question: How can we attract good luck? We need more than that lightweight luck found in a fortune cookie – we need the real deal. Thor Muller explores the eight pathways for generating the conditions that favor luck in his session “Get Lucky: The Business of Planned Serendipity.”
Thor is a true believer in well planned luck and social entrepreneurship. He is CTO and co-founder of Get Satisfaction in San Francisco, where he finds and advises startups that make a difference. His experience as a Web pioneer bridges both design and technology.
Technology is everywhere, the digital and physical worlds are colliding, but often still not seamlessly or painlessly. Here’s your opportunity to change that by learning to create cross-channel design. After all, you live a cross-channel life.
Samantha Starmer’s interactive workshop, “The Future of Web Design Isn’t Just the Web” will offer tools and recommendations for creating holistic, interactive experiences that resonate in all channels, interactions, and surroundings.
Samantha leads experience, design and information architecture teams at REI (Recreational Equipment Inc.) and has done customer focused work at companies like Amazon.com and Microsoft. She is passionate about evangelizing and creating holistic customer experiences across channels, time and devices.
As user research becomes firmly established in organizations around the world, it’s tempting to congratulate ourselves and retreat to our shiny new labs. But our work is nowhere near complete. As currently practiced, user research remains narrow in focus, often limited to the qualitative methods that reflect our own educational biases, and the tools that fit within our own comfort zones.
In “Beyond User Research“, keynote speaker, Lou Rosenfeld, explores some of the other research perspectives and practices available and suggests how you can use them to develop better products and services for yourselves and your clients.
A well known speaker, teacher, and moderator, and founder of Rosenfeld Media, Lou helped establish the fields of information architecture and user experience, and has advocated for the role and value of librarianship in those fields.